REVOLT IN SPAIN

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20505, 25 August 1936, Page 7

REVOLT IN SPAIN

BITTER FIGHTING IN PROGRESS STERN STRUGGLE AT GWON United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph Cnnvrlght LONDON, August 23. The Government forces had the advantage in the week-end fighting. The scene of the bitterest conflict was Gijon, where the Government gained control after a week’s operations, enabling the victors to despatch reinforcements to aid the loyalist miners besieging Oviedo, where a rebel sortie was defeated, with the death of the leader, Ortiz Zarate. Facing Murderous Fire. The final attack on Gijon was launched by the miners, who, using sticks of dynamite, stormed the barracks, in which the insurgents were besieged, hurling themselves forward in defiance of a murderous fire from the walls. Though many were killed before reaching throwing distance, the survivors, undismayed, lit their fuses and pitched the dynamite sticks over the walls. The barracks were soon aflame, but the rebels fought on with desperate valour, until the roof collapsed, the dynamite meanwhile inflicting fearful execution. Only 150 of 500 defenders escaped alive, their officers committing suicide rather than fall into the enemy’s hands. The miners 'captured a number of guns. Campaign in Other Parts. A squadron of rebel aeroplanes bombed the militia barracks at Madrid, and returned to Seville, claiming to have inflicted material damage. General Franco announces minor successes near Saragossa and elsewhere. Insurgent columns surround Rio Tinto, the mining district, where 10,000 hardy loyalist miners, well supplied with ammunition and small arms, have sown all approaches with dynamite and placed barbed wire around the adjacent villages. A rebel bombing raid destroyed a petrol depot at Malaga, containing 1,000,000 gallons. Loyalist troops around Cordoba cdunter-attacked and drove the rebels into the city, with heavy loss to Foreign Legionaries and Moors. FATE OF REBELS SURVIVORS’ LIVES SPARED United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received August 24, 7.35 p.m.) LONDON, August 24. The Gijon correspondent of “The Daily Chronicle,” describing the fate of the rebels after thirty-two days of siege says: “Colonel Pinellas, commander of the rebels, forbade surrender and shot those attempting «t. The garrison defied overwhelming odds until Colonel Pinellas fell riddled with bullets, leaving eighty to surrender. The victors, in contradistinction to the Fascists’ massacre of the Badajoz garrison to the last man, spared the survivors. Moors Bitterly Complain. The Government claims to have routed a rebel coloumn at Medellin, including Foreign Legionaires and Moors. The British United Press correspondent says that Colonel Mangan’s workers’ militia defeated the rebels on the mountain front north of Madrid. Moorish prisoners state that 500 Moors formed the advance guard. They complained that the officers forced them to lead the attack, shooting any who showed sign of vacillation. They also told them that they were opposing the militia armed with only picks and shovels.